Even though I have nothing to do with American politics, it’s hard not to look away from the car crash that has encapsulated the last few months. As Joe Biden’s behaviour became more and more erratic and Donald Trump kept being allowed to move around America to spread his unholy gospel unfettered by his various legal woes, I often sat and wondered what the outcome of this mess would be.
And, although I knew that it would hurt the polls, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t pleased when Kamala Harris was endorsed by the majority of delegates to take Biden’s place.
You see, Kamala Devi Harris is one of those success stories that the educated only dream that their children could learn from. The daughter of a biologist whose work contributed to advances in breast cancer research and a Stanford University professor of economics, Harris has had a dazzling career.
And yet, despite all her numerous achievements, Senator JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president still saw fit to make a dig at her in 2021 when he referred to her as a “childless cat lady”. Can you imagine a similar comment being made towards a man? You might have shuddered as you read this but the truth is that similar sexist comments are aimed at female politicians every day.
In Malta, only seven out of 68 of our local councils are led by women and only 22 out of 79 of our members of parliament are female (and this is after the gender quota mechanism kicked in). These numbers show that women continue to have little to no representation in the political sphere.
It also means that issues that are usually more associated with the “female domain” will continue to inevitably be put on the back burner. Like those books written about women by men, there is only so much of the female experience that you can appreciate when you’re on the outside looking in.
So, what can be done to change this? The truth is that while Maltese mothers continue to teach their daughters to be submissive and expect them to prioritise housework over homework (and not ask their sons to lift a finger to help), and while we continue to emphasise how little girls look over how they think, we are not helping to create female leaders.
It’s bad enough that our biologies inadvertently end up slowing our dreams down a little if we do choose to have children without also having to overcome different voices telling us that our place is in the parlour not in parliament. If we don’t create proper spaces for women and don’t change the very specific rhetoric around the way we criticise them, then how are we any better than Vance?
The world needs more Kamalas, Marias, Jessicas, and Shanias. Half of the population can’t just continue to remain unseen. And it shouldn’t matter how many cats they have either. Every childless woman knows there’s no such thing as too many.